TQI QuickBits: We See 'Em: IBM's Quantum Dev, IQM's Road Ahead. And More News In Quantum
The Quantum Insider
Making Quantum Technology accessible through media, news, insights and data
I think we'll all want to go ahead and put a big red circle on 2030 in the calendar.
2030 seems to be the critical target year on the roadmaps of numerous quantum computing companies that are on the path to develop fault-tolerant machines, or at least machines robust and reliable enough to reach some form of quantum advantage.
IQM Quantum Computers is the latest to put a pin on that date.
Often, these roadmaps raise a lot of questions. The main one: How are these roadmaps used -- are they for internal vision-setting, or are these target dates simply milestones for supporters and investors?
The second one: How reliable are roadmap goals?
All good questions with one terrible answer: I don't know.
The motivations -- and accuracy -- of these roadmaps will vary from company to company. But, after talking to many teams, the planning process for -- and subsequent execution of -- roadmaps are serious business, requiring methodical work for these companies. Will they all hit the targets -- probably not. Some might miss these dates. But some might actually come in early.
It will be necessary to watch and assess constantly over these next few years. There will be surprises.
Have a great weekend!
Quantum Events
I wanted to give a shout out to upcoming events for the quantum community. Mark these on your calendar:
Nov. 18-22 -- International Single Photon Workshop will be taking place in Edinburgh Nov. 18 to 22.
Nov. 20-22 -- Xpanse 2024 will be held in Abu Dhabi. XPANSE is more than a forum, it is an observatory and an activator of exponential technologies and deep science for the co-visioning of the next chapter for cities, citizens, industries and societies.
Dec. 10-12 -- Q2B Silicon Valley, The Road to Quantum Value at the Santa Clara Convention Center.
Dec. 11 -- The Future of Computing Conference 2024 . Join 250+ Startup Founders, Deep Tech Investors, and Computing Experts for this conference held at the Munich Urban Colab.
Dec. 12-13 -- Quantum Rising: National Quantum Literacy Network 3.0 will be held in Atlanta, Georgia. Quantum AI shaping the next generation quantum literate workforce.
Jan. 14-15, 2025 -- Quantum.Tech Qatar taking place 14 & 15 January 2025 (with a Cryptography and AI focus day on January 13).
Feb. 25-27, 2025 -- The Quantum Innovation Summit returns for its second edition from February 25-27 at The H Hotel, with additional virtual participation via the QIS Event APP.
April 2-4 -- NQCC’s Scalability in Quantum Computing Conference that we are running rom 2nd-4th April 2025 in Oxford, UK. Early bird registration closes on 30th November 2024.
May 20-22, 2025 – Join us for the 3rd annual IQT Nordics , May 20-22, 2025 in Gothenburg, Sweden, and contribute to scaling quantum computers towards real world applications.
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Quantum Quotes
IBM hosted its inaugural IBM Quantum Developer Conference this week and?announced quantum hardware and software advancements to execute complex algorithms on IBM Quantum computers with record levels of scale, speed and accuracy.
“Advances across our hardware and Qiskit are enabling our users to build new algorithms in which advanced quantum and classical supercomputing resources can be knit together to combine their respective strengths. As we advance on our roadmap towards error-corrected quantum systems, the algorithms discovered today across industries will be key to realizing the potential to solve new problems realized through? the convergence of QPUs, CPUs, and GPUs.” -- ” said Jay Gambetta, Vice President, IBM Quantum.
Quantum computing is moving from theory to reality, and Massachusetts has just invested $5 million in a project that could move the state into a quantum computing leadership position. The investment, directed toward a quantum computing initiative in Holyoke and partnering with Boston-based company QuEra Computing Inc. , reflects the growing recognition of quantum computing’s potential to transform industries from medicine to logistics, according to a Northeastern University vice provost.
“It’s scientifically challenging and fun, both at the same time. We are putting very high order goals in front of us and seeing if we can beat them… You somehow have to think about the future, invent it and then people believe it." -- Deevesh Tuwari, vice provost for research computing, Northeastern University
Insider Look: Government Opportunities
Governments have always been prime investors -- and, at least initially, perhaps the only investors -- in quantum technologies. Grants and other types of government funding are still essential forms of financial backing for organizations and startups hoping to compete in the quantum space. For some companies, the support is vital to securely shift from scientific enterprise to a commercial stance. Finding these funding opportunities usually requires a massive amount of internet search time. The Quantum Insider's Intelligence Platform features an all-in-one tool that can bring those requests to your team in a single easy-to-read format.
Check out The Quantum Insider's Intelligence Platform .
QuickBits Spotlight: IQM's Roadmap
IQM Quantum Computers (IQM), a global leader in superconducting quantum computing, announced its development roadmap with technical milestones targeting fault tolerant quantum computing by 2030, while enabling a dedicated Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) approach for near-term use.
QuickBits Business -- This Week's Top Five Quantum Business Stories
爱立信 and the Government of Canada today announced the signing of an expanded funding agreement that will see Ericsson invest more than CAD $630 million (approximately $453 million) in its Canadian R&D operations, a substantial increase from last year’s announcement. This funding increase will further enhance Ericsson’s R&D capabilities at its research facilities in Ottawa and Montreal creating and upskilling hundreds of jobs and internships and strengthening these sites as global leaders in 5G Advanced, 6G, AI, Cloud RAN, quantum, and network API technologies.
The UK National Quantum Technologies Showcase 2024 celebrated its biggest showcase to date on Friday (8 November) with over 2000 quantum change-makers attending as NQTP marked its 10th anniversary. Organised by Innovate UK and EPSRC, in collaboration with NQTP, the showcase covered a range of subjects including quantum sensing, imaging, computing and communications and showcased innovations across the sector.
?A joint research group including Akira Furusawa, team leader of the Optical Quantum Computing Research Team at the RIKEN Quantum Computing Center (Vice Director of the Quantum Computing Center and Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo), Hidehiro Yonezawa, team leader of the Optical Quantum Control Research Team, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), and Takuji Hiraoka, CEO of Fixstars Amplify Inc., has succeeded in developing a new type of quantum computer. This will be the world’s first platform for general-purpose optical quantum computing.
Atlantic Quantum , in collaboration with Professor Kevin P. O’Brien at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Quantum Coherent Electronics (QCE) group, announces it has been selected by AFWERX for a Phase II STTR grant in the amount of $1.8 million focused on developing utility-scale superconducting quantum computers to address the most pressing challenges in the Department of the Air Force (DAF).
Quantinuum has launched a Quantum Error Correction (QEC) decoder toolkit, what the team is calling a critical addition to its quantum computing suite aimed at achieving fault-tolerant quantum computing. The toolkit lets users decode syndromes — or identify and correct errors — and apply real-time corrections, essential steps to maintaining reliable quantum computations, the company announced in a blog post. According to the team, this toolkit marks Quantinuum as the first company to offer such capability, accelerating progress toward practical quantum technology.
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QuickBits Research -- This Week's Top Five Quantum Research Stories
In the coldness of space, certain objects sit nestled among their stellar neighbors, immersed in an icy quiet that is positively alien to the room-temperature reality we inhabit. Such, too, is the state of superconducting qubits within the specialized dilution refrigerators that serve as their ultimate respite. It is within this almost unimaginable cold that qubits are allowed to, however briefly, exist undisturbed. Here superconducting circuits are permitted to conduct electricity without resistance, an ideal state that’s fundamental for maintaining quantum coherence. And it is here where qubits are able to exist in a state of superposition–a state simultaneously natural and incomprehensible.
In the quiet cold of superconducting quantum circuits, unseen cosmic and terrestrial forces wage a subtle war on stability, disrupting fragile quantum states with a formidable foe: background radiation. According to a study recently published in PRX Quantum, naturally occurring ionizing radiation can interfere with superconducting qubits by introducing decoherence—a word that generates feelings of unease in quantum scientists as it threatens the stability of quantum states.
An experimental setup built at the Technion Faculty of Physics demonstrates the transfer of atoms from one place to another through quantum tunneling between optical tweezers. Led by Prof. Yoav Sagi and doctoral student Yanay Florshaim from the Solid State Institute, the research was published in Science Advances.
Nature, the original engineer, has long used the subtle patterns of selection and adaptation as a medium, adjusting traits in response to an endless stream of environmental queues. In this process of natural selection, each adaptation us a calculated adjustment to increase the odds of success in an ever-shifting world. Inspired by this adaptive strategy, one that has notably faired well this far, scientists have developed computational models known as genetic algorithms, which apply these patterns of selection, mutation, and recombination in order to solve complex problems.
An 美国麻省理工学院 -led team has developed a framework using large language models (LLMs) to predict the sequence of chemical reactions and conditions — or, the synthesis pathways — for inorganic materials, including quantum materials, potentially accelerating discoveries in fields like quantum computing and medical imaging.
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